It's a little bit dark, but that lends it character.
More than a little bit. Useful read for those who think Joe Abercrombie invented gritty fantasies. Also, did anyone spot the in-joke in GoT series four, where Joffrey asks the crowd what to name his new sword? One name called out was: "Stormbringer". (Another was "Terminus" - should have been "Terminus Est", of course - but I couldn't make out what the other two names shouted out were.)
As for Mike Scott Rohan from leemk: a much underestimated writer. He tends to write books based at least loosely on actual periods of history, rather than in Elf-Land. He also did an interesting set of urban fantasy starting with "Chase the Morning". [namedrop]he also seemed a nice bloke the time I spoke to him[/namedrop]
Currently I'm reading "The Wise Man's Fear" by Patrick Rothfuss. Much of his books are straight out of cliché central - hero comes from nothing etc - but he has some interesting stuff. For a start, a lot of the books is concerned with the hero's finances, and his perpetual shortage of money. Most fantasy just sort of gloss over that sort of thing. His handling of magic is interesting as well. In some ways he is like Michael Crighton, who someone correctly pointed out was brilliant at making boring stuff interesting, but also for making interesting stuff boring. The characterisation is pretty mediocre as well: interestingly it is a couple of the females who seem rounded characters (oh-er missus), where as the male friends of the hero are just names.
But the big thing I'm not happy about is: this looks like it will go on a long time. I'm halfway through book two and no discernible main arc has gone anywhere yet. I can't see this is being less than a five book set. And fantasy really does not need any more series that long, never mind longer. All fantasy writers should be made to read the Earthsea books to see how you can create a world in a sentence, not fourteen chapters.
Before that was "Skin Game" by Jim Butcher, latest of the Harry Dresden books, and about the weakest. The problem with this series now is that the end-game has started (I believe there are only two more to go) so this book read like the first of a trilogy, and came to an serious anticlimax.
Also recently (OK, it's a while since I posted in here):
Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. I enjoyed it, but part of her style is starting to bug me, because she relies on it too much: the whole: "that's interesting and important, but I'm not going to explain of for another hundred pages" thing.
Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett. It's hard to speak ill of the dead, but the impression I got was of a book actually written in Pratchett's style by someone else. I've heard that his daughter was doing some writing for him, and I wonder if she was involved in this.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Good, but it's hard to really like a book where every character is a grotesque, and the main character the worst of all of them.
Declare by Tim Powers. The man's books are always good, if nothing else at the sheer skill involved in joining fantasy to real events and people (the spy Kim Philby is a major character, and many events mentioned really happened).
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson. This gave the impression of two different books cut'n'shutted together. The best bit of the book sort of came out of nowhere, and then almost got forgotten again. Good, and interesting, but not a classic.
The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell). Good, as her books always are, but not up to the earlier ones written in that name.
Crown of Renewal by Elizabeth Moon, the last of a five part series. True to what I said earlier, it's too long as a series. There are around six main characters, and that's three too many. Especially as it was obvious that Moon herself had clear favourites among them. She should have stuck to just them. Bits worked, much did not. At times she seemed to be giving a lesson, rather than trying to make interesting.
